TED 2010: Google Optimistic It Can Remain in China

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TED 2010: Google Optimistic It Can Remain in China

LONG BEACH, California – Google appears to be content to remain in China doing business as usual while it finds a way to work within the system, according to one of the search giant's founders. This despite a strong statement 30 days ago that it would stop censoring search results in China and possibly pull its business out of that country.

Google founder Sergey Brin discussed the recent hack attack against Google at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference here Friday. He was invited to the stage by TED curator Chris Anderson to discuss the hack against dozens of companies that targeted intellectual property and Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Google stated at the time it announced the hack that it would seek to negotiate with the Chinese government to find a way to continue to operate there without censoring its search results.

Anderson asked Brin if he thought the negotiations would succeed, and Brin said he wanted to find a way to "really work within the Chinese system."

"I'm not going to put odds on it. ... Perhaps we won't succeed immediately ... but maybe we will in a year or two," he said, noting that "a lot of people think I'm naive ... but I wouldn't have started a search engine in 1998 if I wasn't optimistic."

Google.cn is still operating, and search result pages are still appended with the message: "According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown." So as best as can be determined, Google continues to obey Chinese law and is neither in a hurry to leave or challenge the government in a more direct manner by stopping the practice.

Brin said he felt that after entering China in 2006, things had actually improved in China for a while.

"I know there was a lot of controversy about that," he said. "But we were actually able to censor less and less. ... we also provide notification when the local laws prevented us from showing information, and local competitors followed suit in that respect. So I feel like our entry made a big difference."

Things, however, started going downhill, especially after the Olympics, he said. There's been a lot more blocking going on since then, and Google's other sites, such as YouTube, have been blocked.

"So the situation really took a turn for the worse," he said.

Brin said the company was willing to continue to do some types of censorship – porn and gambling – but didn't want to continue political censorship.

"There's probably some people here who wouldn't mind you doing that in the U.S. as well," Anderson replied.

If they can negotiate this level of censorship Brin said, "we'd love to continue Google.cn and our operations there."

Anderson asked if Google wasn't being naive that it could pull out of China, given shareholder interests and other demands.

"You're inevitably forced to compromise," Anderson said. "I mean, really? Don't be evil? Can you really hold on to that?"

"Well perhaps people don't believe this but all throughout the discussion of originally entering China in 2006 ... and including the announcement last month, our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people, it's not been about our particular revenue or profit or whatnot. And I think there are many potential answers there and it's a really difficult question."

Brin ended his comments by calling out companies that don't disclose when they've been hacked.

"As we've gone through this investigation, it turns out a number of companies were aware of certain attacks on their systems and yet they didn't come forward, and as a result other companies couldn't be better prepared," he said. "If more companies were to come forward with respect to these sorts of security incidents and issues, I think we would all be safer."